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Provider: ValuEngine, Inc.
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Provider: Reuters Investment Profile
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Provider: Reuters Investment Profile
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Japan fights to avert nuclear meltdown after quake
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People walk along a flooded street in Ishimaki City, Miyagi Prefecture in northern Japan, after an earthquake and tsunami struck the area, March 13, 2011.
Credit: Reuters/Kyodo
FUKUSHIMA, Japan |
FUKUSHIMA, Japan (Reuters) - Japan battled on Monday to prevent a nuclear catastrophe and to care for millions of people without power or water in its worst crisis since World War Two, after a massive earthquake and tsunami that are feared to have killed more than 10,000 people.
A badly wounded nation has seen whole villages and towns wiped off the map by a wall of water, leaving in its wake an international humanitarian effort of epic proportions.
"The earthquake, tsunami and the nuclear incident have been the biggest crisis Japan has encountered in the 65 years since the end of World War Two," a grim-faced Prime Minister Naoto Kan told a news conference on Sunday.
"We're under scrutiny on whether we, the Japanese people, can overcome this crisis."
Officials confirmed three nuclear reactors north of Tokyo were at risk of overheating, raising fears of an uncontrolled radiation leak.
As Kan spoke, engineers worked desperately to cool the fuel rods in the damaged reactors. If they fail, the containers that house the core could melt, or even explode, releasing radioactive material into the atmosphere.
Kan also said the world's third biggest economy faced rolling power blackouts when it reopens for business on Monday.
Tokyo's financial markets will reopen, with a 0.5 percent fall in U.S. S&P futures pointing to stocks taking a hit, while the yen rallied in volatile trading on expectations of repatriations by insurers and other companies.
Broadcaster NHK, quoting a police official, said more than 10,000 people may have been killed as the wall of water triggered by Friday's 8.9-magnitude quake surged across the coastline, reducing whole towns to rubble.
"I would like to believe that there still are survivors," said Masaru Kudo, a soldier dispatched to Rikuzentakata, a nearly flattened town of 24,500 people in far-northern Iwate prefecture.
Kyodo news agency said 80,000 people had been evacuated from a 20-km (12-mile) radius around the stricken nuclear plant, joining more than 450,000 other evacuees from quake and tsunami-hit areas in the northeast of the main island Honshu.
Almost 2 million households were without power in the freezing north, the government said. There were about 1.4 million without running water.
"I am looking for my parents and my older brother," Yuko Abe, 54, said in tears at an emergency center in Rikuzentakata.
"Seeing the way the area is, I thought that perhaps they did not make it. I also cannot tell my siblings that live away that I am safe, as mobile phones and telephones are not working."
NUCLEAR CRISIS
‘the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it had been told by Japan that levels “have been observed to lessen in recent hours”.’
This scares me. It’s an international agency passing on second hand information from a government agency that, we hope, is not fudging the truth or outright lying. Certainly the incentives are to be tight lipped at a time when the public has a right to now. Hopefully Reuters and other news outlets are trying to validate what the Japanese government is saying, by using their own radiation counters and other means.
This same dynamic — passing on second hand information as if it had been validated as true — also exists in most stories about possible impact on US reactors. We’re told all about our great nuclear technology but the Japanese have great nuclear technology, too. The public needs the straight facts from reporters, not journalism by press release or public statements.
At the least, this should be a wakeup call in the US that we need to develop and promote energy sources that are not potentially destructive to human life if nature turns violent. We can’t count on creating perfect technology. Nature will destroy our toys. Mistakes will happen.
The true heros of the world are the Japanese people who continue to work at these plants despite the danger. They are truely putting their lives on the line for a noble cause and humanity in general. A very hard time for the families whose parents are making this sacrifice.
I highly doubt Reuters is getting close enough to Fukushima or the other 2 reactors under emergency to check the veracity of the Japanese government’s statements.
(first of all, you’d have to have a baseline on radiation and cesium..)…
It is patently obvious, regretfully, that the Japanese gov’t is vastly minimizing the threat. Why? Save face, keep panic at bay. But what is better – calm public or irradiated public?
With radiation and cesium – in any quantities – in the atmosphere, it is irresponsible to keep the citizenry informed.
The IAEA is toothless and lazy.
Heroes to be working at the plants -I’m certain they are not doing it out of patriotism. It’s not a noble cause – do you think they do this willingly? hah…they are in harm’s way due to a corrupt utilities magnate (TEPCO) which has been corrupt and suspected of falsifying safety records. This reactor (Fukushima)was due to be decommissioned within a quarter…
The seawater is not working. The rods are encased in 6″thick stainless 1560 c. The rods run 2200 c. Not cool enough.
The Japanese gov’t just publicly said “a meltdown may be happening”…
If you follow news (AP/anything credible) …most US nuclear specialists believe a meltdown is a near certainty
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